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SEO blog

There are many reasons why people pick up SEO as a skill that they will want to have and also to keep and work on. SEO is one of the key marketing pillars for their business nowadays and being in the digital age, digital marketing is key to the businesses. Being able to do good SEO will not only help you to be better employable and at the same time able to let you advise people on how to do up their online marketing strategy.
So what are some of the things that you as a newbie of SEO learn this skill fast and also what you should do when you wish to pursue this as a career?

1. Find the correct resources to read and find out more about this skills
There are many websites that are able to teach you SEO skills and there are also many sites that are able to go from the simplest of skills to the tougher ones. My opinion is to learn from the white hat ones first so that you know what is going on and what the correct way of doing things is but you should slowly venture into grey and black hat sites for learning purposes but do not actually apply them.
The good thing about learning a little bit of things from the dark side is so that you are able to truly understand how the search engines actually work and this will invaluable for you in your road towards learning how the google search engine works and eventually becoming a guru in it.
Black hat methods are very interesting because they take on the loopholes of the system and exploit them for ranking purposes, there are actually whiter ways to do them so you could use the principles of the dark side methods to apply them in a clean way for ranking. That has to be slowly learnt, I can’t teach you here!
Read up more from a wide range and learn from various youtube sites too!

2. Have a test site for you to do your SEO training

For anyone who wishes to learn a martial arts, you should know that they should always have a school or a mountain cave to practice their craft. Same thing when it comes to learning SEO, if you are new, you should never try to start off any projects on your own. This is one thing that you should avoid because the chances of screwing up is very high if you are not aware of how sensitive the Google search engine systems can be. There was a period of time that I did screw up one website but luckily it belonged to me which I did eventually recover but not without much down time.
So have fun with a new test site, maybe you can create a directory site, like those that I worked closely with Yi Jun of www.sgsoccerpitches.com to create, she managed to learn the basics of doing up a good and clear title and description, making sure there are enough density of keywords within the post and pages and also have a clear architecture in the way you build the website. The website has since 2015 been the top website in Singapore to search for soccer fields and pitches in Singapore.
Build a good test site for yourself with an interesting topic and you can write extensively for it and also learn to build links to it and find out what links work and which ones doesn’t work and might end up being detrimental to your site instead.
After you have tested out your skills and sure of what you are doing you could start taking up projects for people and start charging them for your work and time and also maybe when you deliver good results to get a certain amount of bonus from them.

3. Get a mentor or go for classes

SEO can be self-taught. I am someone who self-taught SEO through lots of reading and testing and this is something that many people can do but the fact is, it was a long journey and not easy for people to take on if they want to learn it fast so that they can apply it in their career or their businesses.
We took about 4-5 years to get to where I am but this is something that you can shorten if you have a mentor or learn from someone through classes that we conduct.
If you are keen on learning seo through our Singapore SEO Classes, do contact us!

Keeping the basics in SEO strong – There are many methods and skills that are being taught in the SEO world in recent years.

SEO has been going through many changes over the years and there has been times when spamming works. Spamming worked so well that anyone could rank and it was a race to the bottom for many webmasters. Then there were those that decided that every sentence should have their keyword and it worked for awhile but not again.

Then there were those that blasted links in fast and that also has become a penalty

Then recently, it became about domain authority and page authority. This has led to the sale of many of such authority websites links that may have been good or bad for those affected.

What really matters is still the basics when it comes to SEO.

1. Make sure you have the keywords in the titles and descriptions
2. Make sure your content is relevant to the keyword you are going after
3. Build links from reputable and good websites
4. Slowly grow your SEO links because slow and steady wins the race
5. Always bring value to your customers before you expect something back from them.
6. Write more and relevant content on your website so that you have a strong natural following.

Go back to your basics when you perform SEO so that you can work out well in the end.

When i mean having a clear navigation bar, the alt text and also the actual words you use should complement the actual inner page title and description for additional impact.

2. Having limited number of menu choices to choose from

When you have too many items to choose from, you get confused. So does the Google algorithms. Keep it simple and clean and easy to use.

3. You website name should be your brand name and it should be unique

If your name is too common and people search for this keyword based on your name, Google might not be encouraged to display your results with sitelinks because they are so many ABC company that has the same name,

4. Unique titles and descriptions

Since the title and descriptions appear for site links. Use something unique that will catch the attention of Google.

When you are doing your own SEO, there are many things you need to watch out for so that you do not make the wrong efforts or even counter the actual growth of your website’s SEO because you are doing something illegal or counter productive.

The game of SEO used to be a lot more clear cut and easy but things have slowly evolved into something that is much more complicated and harder to find out.

There are a few key pointers that you must take note of when you want to make a good link building strategy for your website or client’s website.

1. Always remember to diversify

There are many things that you can diversify, whether it is your link source, the link type or even the linking anchor. You must be building links that vary across the board because this matters a lot to the algorithm now. The algorithms have become very sensitive to changes and this makes the whole SEO strategy all the more diverse when you are trying to rank for highly competitive keywords.

Remember that links can come from anywhere. So when you build links, don’t just focus on forums or profiles or blog post. You must have a little of all and that makes a great back link profile that Google will want to pay attention to.

Also remember that the anchor needs to be diversify, if you use the big money keyword all the time it is not going to work at all!

And last but not least, stop writing 50 articles on one website, its quite useless because the more base domains you get your links from, the better the results.

2. Get a old domain , new one if you really must

If you have a new brand name, you have to use a new website domain, then you have not much choice.

If you do have a choice, get an older domain because that means you do not have to start of the whole SEO from scratch. You could instead choose to get one that has links and also have a longer history with Google.

Google love sites that are old and recognized so that they do not have to find out whats new about your website just because you are new to the world.

3. Having a local website to link to your webpage

Many do not pay good attention to this. When you are looking to rank well in Singapore for example, always try to find links from a .sg domain versus a few hundred .com domains. You get more authority from a vote of confidence from a local domain if you want to rank local.

You should also get more links from free sites where you can submit your websites to for local map awareness.

Are you interested to learn more than What makes a good link building strategy? Find out more about our SEO classes in Singapore

What can you expect from a SEO Class – When you want to start a business, you want to cut cost. Cost comes from every corner whether it is in administrative, marketing, sales or branding. The best way to cut cost for your business is to do it yourself. Many business owners think they are able to handle so many work at one go that they try to be jack of all trades and yes to some extent they are able to cover those work quite well so that the business is functioning and moving on. But what they do not realize is their skill sets can be quite limited and with this limited skill sets they are limiting their company’s growth potential.

Learning to do a certain skill better is one of the many ways you can save cost and there are many reasons why you should try to learn your SEO yourself. SEO is one cost that may be recurring and can cost you a bit. We will discuss this further with you if you should get a full scale consultant to assist you with your SEO work or whether you should do it yourself.

Most startups do not have the budget to pay $300-$1500 retainers a month and without this sum of money, they have almost no access to the Google market at all and this is a sad situations. Where Googles’ searches can bring you to is something we all know. Top searches get hundreds to thousands of leads and you are missing out on it.

So what are some of the advantages and also what to expect from SEO Classes that SEO Geek will be conducting.

1. Concise and to the point SEO lessons

Most SEO classes prefer to just talk about theory and how things work but do not have a fixed module of how to make it work for your business. For most start up founders they have the time and exposure they have but they do not know how to make it more of a SEO value kind of venture. If you have SEO mindset in mind when you do your marketing and branding in the future, you will know how to get the links and also how to get endorsements from other website easily.

2. Tricks that can help you to rank

There are many methods to design your content and also your structure of the website to make it better for SEO link flow. There are methods to also structure footers and headers to make it the better form of SEO website to get more link value from internal linking and also easier for people who come to your website to give you more links either through sharing of your content or through endorsing you on their website.

3. Industry specific courses

Are you running a E-Commerce website, for those website, the amount of work might be different and you could work more on your on site progression work and leave the link building to professionals. For example Allies of Skin, with their E-Commerce website, to redesign the keywords is one of the major jobs that the customers has to work out on.

Certain industries such as blogging have a different set of methods that you can use to get more eye balls.

SEO Geek will start conducting classes by December 2016. More details to come by, keep a look out on our website for SEO Classes in Singapore.

WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENT TYPE OF OFFSITE BACK LINKS THAT YOU CAN BUILD?
By seogeeksg on November 13, 2016 – General SEO, Off Site SEO
What are the different type of offsite back links that you can build?

We all know that there are two main portions when it comes to SEO of a website. There is the onsite website changes and also the offsite website link building that will help you rank higher in the search engines and do well in Google to bring in more traffic to your website and also for your to gain strength in terms of traffic flow and sales.
Onsite changes can be made through changing architecture of the website, the naming and also the density of keyword within your content. But when it comes to office back links, there are so many types of links, so many different sources of links and also different places to acquire them. Which ones are the best ones to get and how do you go about getting this links for the benefit of your website.
So what are some of the links that you could get access to and how do you get them with the least possible amount of work.

1. Profile/Forum pages
When we were younger we like to go to forums and talk about topics that we really like, this can still be true to the one that are very keen on a certain topic and this is one good way to have your links being shown on the web. You will have a profile page and this profile pages usually allow you to have links to link out to your website. Some sites can have dofollow links and some have nofollow links. Either way this is a good way to have your links. You can also use them on your footer links in your post.
2. Guest postings
Probably the most effective form of link as this gives you very high quality and good contextual links that are linked to your topic. But they are hard to come by because there are not many good blog sites that will want to give you the chance to write unless you are very good at writing in that topic and you have very good writing potential and also have a well-researched topic that you can share with the world about.
3. Web/Local Directories
Local directories are quite easy to come by when you can post your business and also the address and the contacts on the sites for free. There are some sites that will require you to pay for their review and also some for life time postings. Some sites have a 1 year expiry, so depending on what goals you want. Some off this sites may not allow just any site because they will want to ensure that they only link to high quality sites on the web and therefore this is great for sites like yours if you are able to give to the a great site for them to review and link to.

4. Review pages
Certain sites will do review for certain services and this sites are a great way for you to gain traffic because this is a good way for people to get to know about you or your product. This is also a great way for you to get links that are relevant to your site.

5. Facebook/Twitter/Instagram, Social Media pages
Social media sites are a new way of bringing new links to your website nowadays, because of the popularity of such sites. Google cannot deny that this websites have a great link in how the World Wide Web is structured now and this counts a good way for Google to signal that this is a good site. Instagram and Twitter allows for profile links. You could also create links within some of your post and Facebook is also a great way for you to share this links. There are also other social media or pinning sites where you can pin about a certain page that you have find out about and this would be a great way to not just get links but also a strong presence on the internet.
6. Articles submission pages
Article submission pages have been around for a long time and there are some that are full of spam and some sites are great value. Find those that are great and well curated to only allow high quality articles and post your articles to share with the world the high quality work that you want to share with the world and how this links can help you to gain more response on the internet not just for the website that you are sharing but also the article can also help you generate more eye balls.
Link building, especially high quality ones takes a lot of hard work and there is a high level of difficulty when it comes to generating them. But if you do have the time and the effort to put in and to produce one that is well researched, the rewards are great and you will be able to rank high on Google. If you need help with your SEO in Singapore, you could find the best seo consultant in Singapore today at SEO GEEK.

Why do SEO Consultants charge monthly SEO retainers – You would know that SEO can go from $200 per month and up to $1000 a month from different consultants and practitioners. This is something that many business owners do not understand.

The difference in price between different agencies can be between high and low quality work.

Some agencies, might be into some form of spamming and spamming is cheap to do, run some scripts, run some programs and you get 100,000 links. This might in the end harm your campaign because spam is never welcomed by Google and google has been trying to combat spam for the longest time. This companies might be able to give you very competitive rates but use their services at your own risk.

High quality work would be something like writing high quality content for your own blog on your own website, this takes a lot of work and time for a good piece of article. They could also be doing guest posting to give you links that would be high quality as well. This has base cost because writers need to be paid. Some writers might be frequent posters in certain high quality sites and they will need to be paid north of $100 just for writing a high quality article.

So why do SEO companies charge retainers?

Search Engine Optimization is not a zero sum game. While i am building a link to your website through say writing this article today, someone else might be writing two. Google takes all this into account when they decide who to rank and this is something that most business owners are not aware about. End of the day, your SEO success is not who’s website is better. Instead it’s whose search engine optimization company is better in getting ranks and not just getting ranks, in maintaining the ranks by constantly making sure that links are build at a slow and steady flow to maintain the ranks and to avoid getting faulted by the infamous google penalty animals like Google Penguin.

SEO companies also charge retainers so that they have enough funds to constantly work on your website, onsite or offsite.

You might be changing your content on a regular basis, for example you are a blogger, you are a E-commerce store. Your products might change on a weekly basis, you might also change some descriptions. When you do such things, the website might not be that well optimized and this is something that you need to watch out for and something that the SEO will have to watch out for you.

When it comes to working on a ranking, every SEO has their own special sauce to it. Some SEOs might have their very own websites, maybe even their personal sites that they link to you. Such links might be kinda “on rent” so you might be also enjoying such advantage because you are linked to as their customer. So you can’t say that your SEO should help you to keep your ranking even if you don’t pay them their retainers anymore. Since you’re not their customers anymore, they are not obliged to link to you on their websites.

If you’re keen to find out more about search engine internet marketing, go to our home page , click here.

Why Choose SEO over other internet marketing methods – You have a website that is brand new and you are looking to grow your outreach of your service or product to more people in the country or the world. Traditional marketing such as the television, radio and newspaper are not as effective anymore as compared to the cheaper, easier to use and fuss free methods of internet marketing. In the world of internet marketing, there are many forms that have come forth over the past decades and mainly dominated by big players such as

1. Google
2. Facebook
3. Instagram
4. Youtube

to name a few. There are many different reasons why you should use either of the methods and even under Google there are the Adwords, pay per click (PPC) method or you could choose the Organic, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) method. There are also many uses of internet marketing methods that you could take advantage of and different platforms are useful for different types of users and depending on whether you are more B2B or B2C, each one will have different pros and cons for your use.

So what makes each choice better than the other and why would we at SEO Geek advocate SEO as one of the best long term strategies for the businesses that are looking to stick around for the long term and in turn to win in the long term in producing high quality websites that everyone who are looking for information about your topic will be able tin find you and to use you as a resource for their research or reading.

Let us explore the pros and cons of each methods first and we will move on to the topic of Why choose SEO over other internet marketing methods

Adwords or PPC Marketing

Adwords is the main revenue generator for Google and this is something that most marketers would take advantage of if they are looking to get their brand out in the fastest manner and with this will also have to take time to find out how they can do better targeting through keywords optimizations and also adjusting budgets for the best marketing efforts. You could use various Google platforms to perform better targeting of keywords and also better assignment of your budget. Platforms such as keyword planner are useful platform you could do research on.

Pros:
Fast returns
Targeted Audience searching for certain keywords

Cons:
Expensive for certain high value keywords
Short term boost to sales
Highly competitive
Repeated high cost factor
Fake clicks (Google has algorithms to prevent that but risk is high)

Facebook Marketing

Facebook advertising is one of the best platforms for brands tat are trying to reach out to consumers. Some consumers do not just search on Google using generic terms. Instead they like to receive marketing materials from the pages they follow or groups they are in. They also like to find out new promotions from people sharing on their walls and also sponsored post on their walls.

Pros:
Great for B2C products
Targeted to the audience
Able to track number of conversions using pixels
Long term brand equity through page liking

Cons:
High level of fake accounts
Conversion rates are not that high (people view promotions but do not convert)

Instagram Marketing

Similar to Facebook marketing, since Instagram has been bought over by Facebook, they run on the same engine and targeting platforms. Instagram is use more for lifestyle companies to do their branding and marketing work and the platform is still in its infancy in terms of marketing.

Pros:
Allows you to reach out to the younger crowd
Well targeted because its in between feeds
High level of targeting

Cons:
Intrusive to people scrolling Instagram
People tend to avoid the ads
Youtube Marketing

Youtube marketing has been a great way to substitute the traditional method of doing marketing on the television. Information can now be spread fast and at a much lower cost. People who view things online are of a younger crowd and if you are looking to reach out to those with the spare cash to spend on your products. Youtube is a great way.

Pros:
Cheaper than traditional Television Marketing
Catches attention if the first few seconds are interesting
Great targeting based on what they are viewing

Cons:
Can be spammy some times
Disrupts viewing pleasure of certain content

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization also has its pros and cons when it comes to the cost effectiveness. But us a SEO Geek would strongly support a long term method to gain a great number of followers to your brand through getting ranked organically.
Pros:
Long term solution to branding and marketing
Great value to brand to rank as the top
High level of traffic to website
Highly targeted to search of users

Cons:
High initial cost and investments
Takes time for ranking

Whichever methods you choose, should be based on your time frame and also your budget. When it comes to internet marketing, it is not one size fits all and you will need to work with a consultant to come up with a method that you think can assist you to grow your business and also to help you to become known as a brand. One should always try to conduct their business with a long term view in mind and also to note that the branding of the company is a very important step in building a business. Branding is not something that you can get overnight and it can take a few days to lose the brand value if it is not well managed.

If you are keen to find out more about internet marketing methods and want to find an internet marketing consultant to assist you or a SEO expert to help with the optimizing of your website. Do contact us to find out more about our services and what we can do to help with your Singapore online marketing efforts.

Best SEO Tips 2016 – The world of SEO changes every single year and with each year comes a new “creature” (refering to Panda, Penguin, Hummingbird, i wonder what’s next) created by Google and new algorithms that are meant to ensure no one can game the system without producing good quality content and returning good websites to the searchers on Google.

So here are some SEO tips 2016 that we would like to share with you on building a website with great SEO and ranking potential:

SEO TIP 1. Build an authority blog

Readers love authority sites, they are seen as the gurus of the industry and they are the ones people want to learn from. When you post articles on a regular basis with things to share, you gain new readers and extra traction for your website. With good articles comes good incoming links. Other bloggers or business owners might reference your site as a sharing option and this makes your website rank because of incoming link juice! You should also constantly update you blog so that you are on top of the game in terms of content and also being relevant to the times.

If you’re not a good writer, consider bringing in quality writers to write good content and review them. Advise them on topics to research on and guide them along on how to produce good content for your industry.

You could also outsource such a function to digital marketing companies or search engine optimization companies with manpower in content writing.

Google loves website that are quality. Quality comes from good research and good knowledge. When you want to share content, thin content is never something that you and i will enjoy.

Most webmasters suggest for the best returns for SEO writing, write content that are 400-500 words MINIMUM. A good article is one that has a good length, probably 1000 words and above. Well sectioned out with proper headers so that Google can better understand them.

Write content that you could add on in the future. News article are good for the moment but evergreen articles are what is best for your website long term Write content that you could build on when you find new information.

A good article would be in the range of 600-700 words, that will get you attention from the BIG G.

SEO TIP 3. Linking out to Authority websites

To be an authority site, you must not be stingy with your linking out. It is always good to share and when you share, you get rewarded.

This works the same way in the eyes of google. When you write an article and refer to other authority sites or to other sites that are high in page rank, for example, Wikipedia! Other sites are also great for referencing, government sites, education sites are some of them.

Of course you should always link to sites that do have value to your readers and when you are making a case study, that would be the best chance to link out to someone.

Share the love =)

SEO TIP 4. Sending links to your pages that are ranked on the 2-5 pages

Firstly, it looks unnatural. A website with only links to the front page just doesn’t seem real, if you think from a human point of view it doesn’t seem natural, will a machine be able to tell, yes of course!

Secondly, why would you not want to rank for long tail keywords for your internal pages, they bring extra value and multiple new chances for readers to find you and build your brand.

Thirdly, it spreads your keywords across and give you multiple chances to rank, you might rank for the same keyword twice because your front page and internal page is ranking! More rankings means more opportunity to engage your customers and this is one way to bring in more leads and therefore more sales

SEO TIP 5. Make a wise choice in keyword usage

When you set up an article or a page, always have SEO in mind. Keep in mind that you want a title that readers would love and at the same time, search engines would love.

Write for readers but always have SEO principles in mind. Having too general a keyword choice might lead to low SEO value, but having one that is too SEO-ed might annoy your readers when they read the title or content.

Decide what you want to rank for and re-write them for SEO perfection.

SEO TIP 6. Using Keywords in your IMAGES!

Did you know your image name “image.jpg” is one chance for you to include your keyword? Did you know that the alt tag and alt description and captions are few alternative avenues for you to add in your keywords or other keywords, you could also take that chance to rank in google images and therefore drive more traffic to your website. If you are an Image heavy website, that is a lot of opportunity missed out if you don’t your image tags and descriptions to maximize your keywords.

Alt tags are the most neglected and if you are in an image intensive industry, it give you extra leverage and mileage to have keywords in them, also within your descriptions.

SEO TIP 7. Upgrading your servers to improve loading speed

Either you could use plugins to cache your site or you could get someone to look into the codes of your website or to change your servers to one that is more international. A great loading speed is a great way to get Google to rank you higher, you also reduce bounce rates of irritable readers and customers. Some customers just hate it when they go to a slow loading website, they will just give up and go to another website instead and you lose this lead.

Always look to improve the loading speed of your website to best improve the loading speed of the server and this will in turn help you to rank better because loading speed is also one of the key ranking pointers.

SEO TIP 8. Having long tail keywords in your title and descriptions

You might be targeted at a few 2 to 3 word keywords but sometimes by just adding a few more words in front or behind those big keywords, you might be able to rank for long tail keywords that bring you the traffic and attention that you might want and need for your website.

You can add them into your title, your description or just having them in your content to give the article or the page a chance to rank higher for those long tail keywords.

Great SEO value at a steal!

SEO TIP 9. Building relationships with people and therefore build links

If you have friends who are top bloggers or even just any blogger, would it be difficult to ask for a link? No. You could ask for some referencing, you could do a link back from your article referencing them. This is great for both of you because you guys give each other exposure like what friends would do. Work closely and build long term relationship with others in the industry and you might be on your way to great SEO value.

Its always great to work with people who like your rank and are glad to link to you as an endorsement to your brand and at the same time to also brand you in their blogs. It builds both brand and marketing value.

When you are well loved by your vendors or customers, they might also want to link you up because they just love you so much!

Always remember, in business, relationship comes before anything!

SEO TIP 10. Using other forms of media other than just words

People recall images and videos much better than the words that they read, if you are trying to convey something, what’s better than to make it into a short video slide show or into and image slide show so that it can be shared easily and also at the same time help your customers to remember them easily. Even better if you could have some sort of a theme song for your brand and this will lead to even better brand recognition.

SEO TIP 11. Build a list of items to do for your industry (TIP PAGES)
Just like this article of the top 20 best seo tips 2016! You could come up with your own top 20 tips for your own industry and share it with the world. You could re write them every year. You could update them with more content every year. You could keep building on it so that it maintains the best in the world.

List are easy for Google to pick up and rank because it is informative and it gives great value to readers. Google also like to take the most popular lists and put it on their Google website as a listing that is convenient for readers who Google for certain information.

Incorporate them into easy to read list of items and good explanations with nice photos to explain your concept and watch the links come in!
SEO TIP 12. Keep your content updated and renewed

How SEO is done in 2014 might be different from 2015 and 2016. So my top 20 best SEO Tips 2016 would need to be updated for 2017, but lets leave that for the next year.

Always make sure you update your content on a regular basis so that you readers get fresh new perspectives when they come back to your blog. It also works well in the eyes of Google because they have fresh new content to crawl when they do come back every once in awhile. This beats an article that is always stagnant and not having much value to Google’s readers.

Also when you update on the fresh developments of the world, eg. NEW algorithm from Google! It shows that you are serious to keep up to date with information.

SEO TIP 13. Be careful of duplicated content within your site and other sites.

You could use websites such as Copyscape to assist you with checking that there are no duplicated content. Google hates plagarism and they have algorithms to check for that. When you do such copying it doesn’t reflect well on your website and you might get penalized for that action.

Content pillars are what we call it in our industry. Take for example, an article on photography skills.

Photography will never change much across the years. When you write an article about how to take good photos, how to explore great angles, how to take advantage of the sunlight and other natural light. Such articles will never ever grow old. Such articles can be and will be the anchoring evergreen article for your site and for google to continuously crawl and link back to your website.

Content pillars are also great for building your own brand and personal name in the eyes of Google. Rewrite, write more, change, update content!

User experience counts for the most effective counters that are non on site or link related. Google knows when your website bounces and bouncing can be quite the downside for your website’s ranking. Try to minimize advertisements because they annoy people. Content must be relevant to what they have searched for. If not they bounce.

Bouncing will make google re-evaluate your ranking. Helping them to stay on your website for various reasons will give you the value towards Google that you are a great website with great user experience.

Now that we have completed the top 15 best seo tips 2016, what do you think of the list? Do you have other items that you would like to share with us?

Why do SEO Consultants charge monthly SEO retainers – You would know that SEO can go from $200 per month and up to $1000 a month from different consultants and practitioners. This is something that many business owners do not understand.

The difference in price between different agencies can be between high and low quality work.

Some agencies, might be into some form of spamming and spamming is cheap to do, run some scripts, run some programs and you get 100,000 links. This might in the end harm your campaign because spam is never welcomed by Google and google has been trying to combat spam for the longest time. This companies might be able to give you very competitive rates but use their services at your own risk.

High quality work would be something like writing high quality content for your own blog on your own website, this takes a lot of work and time for a good piece of article. They could also be doing guest posting to give you links that would be high quality as well. This has base cost because writers need to be paid. Some writers might be frequent posters in certain high quality sites and they will need to be paid north of $100 just for writing a high quality article.

So why do SEO companies charge retainers?

Search Engine Optimization is not a zero sum game. While i am building a link to your website through say writing this article today, someone else might be writing two. Google takes all this into account when they decide who to rank and this is something that most business owners are not aware about. End of the day, your SEO success is not who’s website is better. Instead it’s whose search engine optimization company is better in getting ranks and not just getting ranks, in maintaining the ranks by constantly making sure that links are build at a slow and steady flow to maintain the ranks and to avoid getting faulted by the infamous google penalty animals like Google Penguin.

SEO companies also charge retainers so that they have enough funds to constantly work on your website, onsite or offsite.

You might be changing your content on a regular basis, for example you are a blogger, you are a E-commerce store. Your products might change on a weekly basis, you might also change some descriptions. When you do such things, the website might not be that well optimized and this is something that you need to watch out for and something that the SEO will have to watch out for you.

When it comes to working on a ranking, every SEO has their own special sauce to it. Some SEOs might have their very own websites, maybe even their personal sites that they link to you. Such links might be kinda “on rent” so you might be also enjoying such advantage because you are linked to as their customer. So you can’t say that your SEO should help you to keep your ranking even if you don’t pay them their retainers anymore. Since you’re not their customers anymore, they are not obliged to link to you on their websites.

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